By Sam Fleming, Jim Brunsden and Javier Espinoza
Margrethe Vestager struck a defiant tone this week after defeat at the hands of the EU’s General Court in her tax battle with Apple, insisting to journalists that Brussels is not losing any more cases than it would in any other year.
But officials acknowledge that the EU’s competition enforcer faces hard choices after judges moved to quash her order for the US tech company to pay back €14.3bn in taxes to Ireland. After forging an international reputation as a consumer champion determined to show that competition policy is “a people thing”, Ms Vestager has discovered that there are limits to her ability to give lessons about social responsibility to big tech.
“She built her name by being tough over these issues, and many people said she was pushing the legal framework too far, so this does deal a blow to her reputation,” said Fabian Zuleeg, chief executive of the European Policy Centre. “But it is important to recognise that this is not the end of the process.”
Since taking office in 2014, the former Danish finance minister used EU state aid rules to attack aggressive corporate tax schemes by member states such as Ireland and Luxembourg. This was seen as groundbreaking, part of a first term largely defined by battles with tech companies.
